Every weekday at lunchtime, across a large swath of the Carolinas, thousands of housewives would stop whatever they were doing and turn on Channel 3's "Betty Feezor Show." For nearly a quarter century, Betty was consistently WBTV's most-watched personality.
Betty Feezor was a television presenter whose specialty was cooking and home decorations. The Betty Feezor Show ran on WBTV from 1953-1977. Her show was the first in the world to be video-recorded in color, beginning on Sept. 5, 1958.
Betty was born on Feb. 17, 1925 in Texarkana, Texas where her father John Buford Daniels was a county agent. Due to her father’s graduate studies and work, she lived in Texarkana, Fayetteville and Little Rock, Arkansas. She attended Texas State College for Women before transferring to the University of Tennessee where she got a degree in home economics.
She was a home demonstration agent first in Maryville, TN, then in Salisbury, NC, and later in Greensboro. It was there she met and married Turner Cole Feezor, a farm equipment salesman through his sister. Together they had three children: Betty Cole, John, and Robert. In Greensboro, a TV station asked for her cooking and home expertise.
Turner was transferred and the family moved to Charlotte where Betty worked for 4-H Clubs and Girl Scouts while remaining a housewife. The general manager at the Greensboro TV station alerted WBTV about Betty's impressive work and how she looked comfortable in front of the camera. Eventually, she landed her own show, one that was, for 24 years, one of the station's most popular. She interviewed many celebrities and prominent people such as Richard Nixon and Rose Kennedy.
Betty died on February 28, 1978 after being diagnosed with cancer the previous year. She was only 53. A diary about her battle with the disease was published in 1979. It was titled “A Life That Mattered.” A scholarship is named in Betty's honor. She was elected to the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 1982.
